Believe it or not, funny man Sacha Baron Cohen (pictured, left) was once signed on to play Freddie Mercury in a biopic about the singer; however, clashes with Mercury's band Queen eventually led to a parting of the ways.

 

Cohen is now opening up about what exactly went wrong and why, in 2013, he decided to pull out of the project.

 

"There are amazing stories about Freddie Mercury… the guy was wild," he told Howard Stern this week. "He was living an extreme lifestyle – debauchery! There are stories of little people with plates of cocaine on their heads walking around parties.

 

“[When Queen intervened] it was less interesting a movie. ... You’ve got to remember, and I understand it – they are a band, they want to protect their legacy as a band… they want it to be about Queen. And I fully understand that.”

 

He said the band wanted the movie to be about themselves and how they carried on after Mercury's passing.

 

"‘Well, we see how the band carries on from strength to strength’… I said, ‘Listen, not one person is going to see a movie where the lead character dies from AIDS, and then you carry on to see the band carry on!’.”

 

Cohen explained: “There’s a type of biography called hagiography – if you’re a king, you want your own history written. You want to be the guy who saved the world, and you don’t want it to be someone else saves the world. ... The problem is with any biopic… if you’re in control of your rights to your life story, why wouldn’t you depict yourself as great as possible?”

 

“The remaining members are still great musicians, Brian May is a great guitarist… but he is not a great movie producer," he added.

 

We'd actually like to see both Queen's version and Cohen's version of Mercury's life.

 

Cohen is currently promoting his new movie, The Brother's Grimsby.